Hay Festival 2012: day eleven live

Highlights and pictures from the eleventh day at the Telegraph Hay Festival in
Hay-on-Wye, Wales.

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The Countess of Carnarvon on the downsides of hosting Downton Abbey in your stately home: 'Dogs find paparazzi in the bushes'Photo: Jay Williams

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Martin Amis on his father Kingsley Amis: 'He was great at impressions - his best was 12 tramps having a coughing fit in a bus station'Photo: Jay Williams

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William Boyd (left) on his new James Bond novel: 'I'm a realistic novelist and what interests me about Bond is the human being. There will be no mountains filled with atom bombs or global plagues, no gadgets, no superpowers or preposterous enemies - there will be an entirely believable psychopath, not a preposterous psychopath'Photo: Jay Williams

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Two Hay Festival-goers relax in the grounds of the HayPhoto: JAY WILLIAMS

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Tom Hollander: 'The difference between Rev's soliloquies and Hamlet's is that Hamlet's involve a great deal of speechifying where Rev's involve sitting there thinking,which isn't hard. Learning lines and saying them intelligently - that's skilled, but just sitting and thinking in a generalised way so we can put words under it isn't hard at all.'Photo: Clara Molden

Mary Portas: 'I'm looking at how we can really regenerate so many of the High Streets across our country, that are in pretty dire straits... I'm just trying to learn how people who invest in a community, live in a community, how can they have a proper say in what happens'Photo: Jay Williams

"I have now got a dog and went for a walk on a hill. I used to see people like me and think 'look at that sad f--- talking about dogs'." Dylan Moran performing at Telegraph Hay Festival 2012. Photo: Jay Williams

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The award-winning author of the Tom Gates book came into the Telegraph Tent to do one of her famous doodles on the Telegraph table...Photo: Clara Molden

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Children watch as crime writer Val McDermid launches her first children's book 'My Granny is a Pirate'Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Crime writer Val McDermid launched her first children's book with dedication at the Hay Festival. The rhyming illustrated story begins: 'My granny is a pirate! She's sailed the seven seas / She captured many pirate ships / But was always home for tea" Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Sue Townsend on her hopes for a socialist Britain at the Hay Festival: "I do believe the meek will inherit the earth. Well, not too meek. Meekish" Photo: CLARA MOLDEN

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Telegraph cartoonist Matt Pritchett joins the Hay Festival illustrators who have signed Korky Paul's giant Winnie The Witch mural, which will be auctioned at the end of the festival. Left: speaking at HayPhoto: MARTIN CHILTON / JAY WILLIAMS

Brian Moore, Clare Balding and Clive Woodward on the Telegraph panel during the Telegraph debate at the Hay FestivalPhoto: CLARA MOLDEN

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Alan Hollinghurst spoke about the joy he took in killing off his characters - and failing that, condemning them to lives of miseryPhoto: CLARA MOLDEN

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'Only a small percentage of people can't live without freedom of expression,' said the Wild Swans author in her Hay Festival talkPhoto: JAY WILLIAMS

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'I feel flabbergasted, absolutely tickety-boo and ready to go down to the Drones Club for a drink, obviously,' Sir Terry Pratchett said after collecting his reward for winning the Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction: a Gloucestershire Old Spot Photo: JAY WILLIAMS

The Hay Festival 2012 in Hay-on-Wye takes place between Thursday 31 May and Sunday 10 June. For reviews, news and pictures from the event see our Hay Festivalpage, or follow the latest Hay updates on Twitter @TelegraphBooks

Tweeting from Hay? Please share your thoughts using the hashtag #hay25 or let us know the best quotes using #hayquotes. We will publish a few of the best in the daily live blog, and the Hayly Telegraph, which you can pick up for free every day at the festival.

Latest:

20.07 So all there's left to say is thank you to everyone for a fabulous Hay Festival. We hope you enjoyed our live blog, we certainly did. Have a lovely time at Bill Bailey (8.27pm precisely don't forget) and scroll through our great slideshow round up. Don't forget to follow @TelegraphBooks for updates.

BILL! Why 8.27pm?

19.55 Tomorrow there will be yet more news on the new James Bond story by William Boyd and Martin Amis on women writing sex. We'll also have our Hay Festival round up. See our Telegraph Hay Festival page for all the relevant updates.

19.43 Later on this evening at 8.27pm comedian Bill Bailey will be performing in the Barclays Pavilion. Now, we're not totally sure why he's appearing at precisely 8.27pm, but rest assured there's bound to be a funny reason. Our journalists will be watching him and tweeting from the gig so follow @TelegraphBooks to keep up to date with how it goes.

19.38 So it's getting to the end of the Telegraph Hay Festival in its 25th year. We've had a wonderful time. There has been rain, mud, talking, shouting, singing and laughing - not all necessarily in that order. We're beginning to wrap up the live blog, but there are still things coming in from the festival - so keep your eyes peeled on our Hay Festival page.

19.21 Our environment correspondent Louise Gray was tweeting about The Countess of Carnarvon's talk on Downton Abbey earlier, now she's filed a longer story which hints at a fourth series of ITV's Downton:

The ITV series has been criticised for getting historical detail wrong and Lady Fiona said she does try to correct any mistakes she spots.

“I tell them if the glasses are all wrong but often it is because it makes for better photography,” she said.

The third series of Downton Abbey is currently being filmed at Highclere Castle and for all its downsides Lady Fiona and her family are grateful for the publicity that has allowed them to make repairs to the Jacobethan castle, that was becoming quite rundown, and maintain it for visitors.

She even hinted at a 4th series.

“I think Downton is here to stay for a while, which is great news for us,” she said.

19.06 A tweeter who was in on a reading of TS Eliot's The Wasteland earlier with Simon Callow, Fiona shaw and Tom Hollander:

18.42 Simon Callow has been here at Hay today too - he's been talking on his hero Dickens, who he says was a performer at heart. Dickens's biographer Claire Tomalin, who talked yesterday said much the same thing.

Simon Callow at Hay. Pic: Jay Williams

18.39 It's nearing the end of the 25th Hay Festival. It's gone very fast, but there's been lots of ideas exchanged, new books discovered and writers that we heckled. Here are the final two messages left on the Telegraph Tent table, just for you:

Smile! A message left in the Telegraph Tent

Josie has very good taste.

18.32 We talked about Tom Hollander's beard earlier on, there's rather a large amount of it. Our environment correspondent had this to say on the subject:

18.15 Fiona Carnarvon - the Countess of Carnarvon explained what it was like for her ancestor who really ran 'Downton Abbey' - aka Highclere Castle - during the First World War. She gets the award for the best jumper of the festival - a la Sophie Grabol in The Killing, but more colourful.

<noframe>Twitter: Louise Gray - "Dogs find paparazzi in the bushes" - the Countess of Carnarvon on the downsides of hosting <a href="http://www.twitter.com/DowntonAbbey" target="_blank">@DowntonAbbey</a> in your stately home <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hay25" target="_blank">#hay25</a></noframe>

The Countess of Carnarvon at Hay. Pic: Jay Williams

18.05 Martin Chilton has been meeting children's author Julia Golding. Or has he?

We shall christen children's author Julia Golding - 'Writes with four names'. Julia, who has written The Glass |Swallow, was also appearing at the festival in her pen-name guises as Joss Stirling, Eve Edwards and J Golding.

17.54 Telegraph executive editor Mark Skipworth watched BBC television presenter George Alagiah at 2.30pm today in the Barclays Pavilion. He talked about his recently made documentary 'Mixed Britannia':

Mixed race is now one of the fastest-growing "ethnic" groups in Britain, according to George Alagiah, the BBC television news presenter and journalist, speaking at the Telegraph Hay Festival today.

Alagiah recently made a TV documentary, Mixed Britannia, which revealed the previously untold history of Britain's mixed-race community. "Britain is exceptional. It has probably got a higher proportion of mixed race than any comparable country, certainly more than in Europe," he said.

17.48 As well as tracking down puppies, Martin Chilton has been seeing some actual Hay events today. Including Jan Blake and Kouane Serena performing their show The Girl and the Snake at the Moot. Here they are:

Jan Blake and Kouane Serena performing at Hay

17.33 I know you're going to like this one. Puppies. Lovely Labrador puppies. Nine of them! I think these might be the cutest things I've ever seen. Ever.

New arrivals to the Hay Festival team as Marian brings in her nine Labrador puppies to the Green Room garden

Cute. Pic: Martin Chilton

17.27 LOTS of tweets, all in a row for you - here's another report back from someone who enjoyed digital culture editor Martin Chilton's talk with Andy Kershaw yesterday:

17.24 We mentioned Tariq Ramadan earlier on - he wrote about The Brothers Karamazov for our 'life changing literature' column in the Hayly Telegraph - he's finished his talk now - here's a quote from it:

<noframe>Twitter: Midas PR - Tariq Ramadan "the Middle East is having a cultural crisis.There will be no democratic liberation if there is no creative liberation" <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hay25" target="_blank">#hay25</a></noframe>

17.22 Here's yet another Martin Amis tweet for those of you who weren't able to make the talk:

<noframe>Twitter: Martin Chilton - Martin Amis says his Dad Kingsley was great at impressions - his best was '12 tramps having a coughing fit in a bus station' <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hayfestival" target="_blank">#hayfestival</a></noframe>

<noframe>Twitter: Anita Singh - Martin Amis in pro-women shocker: "There's a bit more song in women's writing, more real sincerity. And they write better about sex" <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hay" target="_blank">#hay</a></noframe>

16.49 Everyone likes an action picture. So below is Martin Amis in action at Hay Festival. For those of you who missed it earlier on - do read our extract of his new novelLionel Asbo. We also have this interesting interview with him by Mick Brown, which gives an intriguing insight into the writer:

In the days when he was the hip young gun­slinger of British fiction, the Martin Amis interview tended to follow a certain form. This would involve tyro journalists – Amis wannabes for the most part – joining their subject at the snooker table or on the tennis court, where the author would go through his famously competitive paces, presenting the journalist with the tricky dilemma of whether to throw the game and curry his favour, or beat him and risk his resentment.

But at 62, time and Amis’s recent relocation to New York have put something of a damper on his sporting enthusiasms. The pub and snooker evenings were long ago sacrificed to family life. And he no longer plays tennis.

'It just got so tragic,’ he says with a sigh. 'I hated it so much – because I wasn’t winning. Isabel says, “Play 80-year-olds, you’ll win against them.” But that’s no good. I can still run – not as fast. My game was built on mobility; didn’t have any big shots or anything. A defensive lob was my big shot. But it’s more to do with reflexes. You shape to do it and you’re not there – you’re crowding it, and the ball’s out of reach, and it fills you with a weird sort of self-disgust. Solemn exasperation and self-disgust.’

Martin Amis at Hay Festival. Pic: Jay Williams

16.38 We've been lucky with the weather the last day or so. People have been able to sit on the grass again. This picture is proof, taken from earlier on today. If you look close enough you can see that the lady is reading The Hunger Games, which is a novel for teenagers about a post-apocalyptic society which hosts a violent reality TV show that involves a bloody competition where contestants fight to the death. Who'd have guessed from this serene picture?

<noframe>Twitter: Anita Singh - Martin Amis struggling to get through reading of his own novel Lionel Asbo without laughing <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hayfestival" target="_blank">#hayfestival</a></noframe>

16.16 Hay Festival director Peter Florence talked to William Boyd earlier on today about Boyd's new book Waiting for Sunrise. We have a snap of the two of them in action. The novel flits between Freud's Vienna and wartime London.

William Boyd and Peter Florence. Pic: Jay Williams

16.01 Is it time for tea yet? Tea and cake? Tea and CHAMPAGNE SOAKED SPONGECAKE?

Contender for fact of the day in the Sport, Ethics and the Olympics talk: that Marathon runners in 1908 used to be given spongecake soaked in champagne to boost them for the final push.

I feel this is the final push of the marathon that is Hay Festival - can someone bring me my champagne soaked sponge cake please?

15.47 Martin Chilton has been out scouting for old vinyl. You can get anything at the Hay Festival if you're willing to seek it out:

As well as selling CDs, there is still a place for vinyl at the Oxfam shop on the Hay Festival site. And how about this for a couple of rarities: Harry Nilsson's 1971 album The Point and Twiggy And The Silver Syncopators - a bargain £12.99.

Vinyl at Hay.

15.34 Martin Amis is about to talk to Gaby Wood on the Wales Stage [501]. The Telegraph has an exclusive extract of his new book Lionel Asbohere for you. It's a state of England satire about a successful criminal who wins the lottery...

The first thing you notice about “Wormwood Scrubs”, Lionel Asbo’s 30-room Gothic mansion, is the little picket line of villagers standing guard at the wrought-iron gates. A smattering of ordinary folk. A shopkeeper, a housewife, a retiree.

I am early for the midday interview, so, whilst I wait, I talk to them about their grievances. Which aren’t what you’d expect for a lotto lout! No wild parties, no demolition derbies or souped-up quad bikes ripping through the countryside. It’s a bit more subtle than that.

True, Asbo is hardly a pillar of the community. That the hamlet’s premier residence, formerly Crendon Court (where Henry VIII once spent the night), is now named after a blighted Acton prison – this rankles.

Here's an illustration of Lionel Asbo and 'Threnody' at home:

'Pop the top off for us, love': Lionel Asbo and 'Threnody' at home. Illustration: Wesley

15.21 Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies is talking today at 4pm on the Digital Stage [504]. He's the author of the book The Arab awakening - Islam and the New Middle East and he wrote our 'Life Changing Literature' piece in the Hayly today. The book he talks about is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The novel is quite difficult to start with but becomes easier as you enter into the universe created by the author with its intertwined stories and multiple characters. You begin to sense what is happening and the way in which this story is in fact a mirror, making you consider your own life .

I have read this book several times and the first time I read it, when I was young, I was struck by the way in which the author deals with the key storyline and the characters. Dostoyevsky adds people and features as he carries you further into the book, adding stories to stories. This is true also of our lives: you cannot immediately understand a character through one experience with them, through one story.

You need to understand the complexity of interpersonal connections and relationships between people, first in brotherhood, then in friendship, towards a specific destiny and in love, loneliness and death.

15.14 The lady obsessed with our high streets at the moment is Mary Portas. She was in Hay yesterday and talked about the plan afoot for a big supermarket in Hay-on-Wye. Here she is being interviewed about how vital high streets are to a sense of community.

15.08 Actress Fiona Shaw was with us at Hay for her event at 1pm on the Digital Stage. She talked about her project with Deborah Warner for the Cultural Olympiad this year - Peace Camp. It's an exploration of love poetry, staged in several different locations throughout the UK between 19 and 22 July.

Here is Fiona talking about love poetry:

Here she is at Hay, looking a little angelic in all that white:

Actress Fiona Shaw at Hay. Pic: Jay Williams

14.56 We still have some treats for you in the form of Simon Armitage Haykus. Here's one, which relates to Tony Robinson's talk yesterday

Time Team

In a field near Hay

archaeologists unearth

bones of a sonnet.

14.41 Our environment correspondent Louise Gray has filed a story on Simon Jenkins's talk earlier today. The Chairman of the National Trust said he cannot believe wind farms are being put up in areas of natural beauty and advocated a way of protecting countryside areas much like listed buildings. There are a lot of people who will agree with that:

The countryside should be graded in the same way as listed buildings, according to Simon Jenkins, Chairman of the National Trust.

Sir Simon said current planning laws do not do enough to protect our most beautiful green spaces.

He said local authorities should grade landscape from one to six, according to how beautiful it is, as well how often the public use it for leisure and how important it is for wildlife.

“If you graded the countryside it would be easier to save it,” he said.

The National Trust recently led a campaign, alongside the Daily Telegraph, to ensure that new planning laws take into account the 'intrinsic value of the countryside’.

14.10 Martin Chilton has sent me some nice words and pictures on artist Dan Llywelyn Hall, who apparently "draws you while you aren't looking".

Artist Dan Llywelyn Hall has spent three years painting writers and asking each one to write a response to the portrait. Dan is keen to see portraiture as an expression of a relationship between the artist and sitter. 'A kind of dialogue is established,' he says, and he wanted to explore this further by including the writers' words in the project. Seventeen writers are represented, including Owen Sheers, Tracy Chevalier and Andrew Motion. 'Portrait of the Pen' exhibition at the St John's Chapel gallery in Lion Street has been open the whole 10 days and Hall has been out and about at the Festival drawing people including former rugby player Brian Moore.

These drawings are great. Here's Brian Moore:

and Jonathan Meads

14.03 Historian David Starkey gave a talk on the House of Windsor entitled 'The Very Model of a Modern Monarch' earlier today. I reiterate: this man has exceptional glasses.

13.55 Comedy actor Tom Hollander's second appearance of the day will be at 4pm in the Barclays Pavilion. He'll be taking part in the Josephine Hart Poetry Hour, alongside Fiona Shaw and Simon Callow. In the meantime, he'll mostly be kicking back, growing this beard:

13.09 Here's a picture of Jeremy Vine - who gave a engaging talk at Hay earlier, by all accounts - from about 10 years ago. Again, computer gremlins mean I couldn't bring it to you sooner.

Jeremy Vine at Hay Festival 2012. Credit: Clara Molden

13.07 It sounds like people enjoyed Andy Kershaw's chat with Martin Chilton yesterday:

@thekingghost: Another fantastic session - Andy Kershaw was simply amazing! Lots of reminiscences I can relate 2 particularly about music & Peel #hayfestival

12.54 Suddenly my inbox is lighting up more often than Phil Tufnell after a long-haul flight. Which is good news for you, as it means we have updates from Hay. First up, here's Sarah Crompton on Tom Hollander, who - if you needed reminding - is on the cover of today's Hayly Telegraph.

Tom Hollander and James Wood, co-creators of the comic television of Rev, said that they were always aware of programmes such as The Vicar of Dibley when they began to create the character of Adam Smallbone, vicar of a run down inner city parish. "it is very funny but it is not interested in liturgy or in questions of faith and as we started to research those things, they were fascinating," said Wood.

Hollander had never wanted to be in a sitcom and did not want to look ridiculous so was determined that Adam would not be a "comedy vicar." "There is a tradition of comedy TV vicars but because I didn't want to look stupid, we wanted his predicament to be ridiculous, we didn't want him to be."

He revealed that Adam's soliloquies, where he prays silently while a voice over expresses his thoughts were not technically that hard to act. "The difference between Rev's soliloquies and Hamlet's is that Hamlet's involve a great deal of speechifying where Rev's involve sitting there thinking,which isn't hard. Learning lines and saying them intelligently - that's skilled, but just sitting and thinking in a generalised way so we can put words under it isn't hard at all."

Right at the end of the day when [the model] was feeling really tired and fed up and saying 'is that it, can we go home', I asked for her to be sat on some steps, and she was completely distracted, very very bored, looking off to one side.

I said to the photographer 'quick, this is it'. It was so natural, we just knew it was the photograph.

12.35 Sorry for the silence, everyone. Gremlins rendered my computer completely useless there for a while. Hopefully we're back on track now. Here's a tweet from a little earlier from our showbusiness correspondent Anita Singh:

@AnitaTheTweeter: @theJeremyVine went down a storm this morning. Paxman and Mandelson anecdotes alone were worth the admission fee #hayfestival

12.00 Weather in brief from Sarah Crompton:

Weather bright but clouding over.

At least it's not raining though. Yet.

11.35 More from Martin Chilton: this time he's on the nail trail.

Vote for the best fingernails of the 2012 Telegraph Hay Festival goes to Liz Pichon, author of the prize-winning Tom Gates series of children's books. The illustrations on the nails are characters from her books.

Liz Pichon fell asleep on the bus again

This all rather begs the question, how does one go about asking someone if you can take a picture of their fingernails? I think I'd end up on some kind of register.

Describing those leaflets which drop through most letter-boxes advertising a handyman for whom 'no job is too small', Dee joked: "Really, I thought. How about I ring them up and say 'my pencil needs sharpening' or 'can you take off the fluff from the bottom of the hoover' or 'I am the middle of a s--- and the toilet roll needs changing'.

The rooms themselves sound fun, too. Having walked in through a giant gun-barrell (what else?) you will be able to take a peek into M’s office, saunter through a casino (complete with every last piece of Bondish detail) and, in the “Ice Palace”, explore Bond’s noted fondness for winter sports. And there also promises to be plenty of smaller, quirkier exhibits, from a hilarious photograph of the battalion of fluffy white cats used in making Diamonds Are Forever (1971) to the impeccably faked passport that Daniel Craig was given, along with false Amex and BA privilege card, to help him get into character. (This, incidentally, has 007’s birth date as April 13, 1968 – didn’t you always suspect Craig’s Bond was an Aries?)

10.52 Don't forget you can get in touch by tweeting to @TelegraphBooks, or using the hashtags #Hay25 or #HayFestival. Indeed, you can even get me on @james_lachno if the mood takes you. Just imagine that I'm stood writing the future in front of several huge Technicolor screens a la Jonathan Pryce in Tomorrow Never Dies.

I'm not, I'm just looking at Tweetdeck.

10.47 More on Jack Dee shortly, but in the meantime shapeshifting culture aficionado MartinChilton has sent me a line or two about broadcaster/writer Andy Kershaw's talk with, er, Martin Chilton. And a nice pic too.

Andy Kershaw, who was talking about his new book No Off Switch in the Sky Arts Studio last night, told the audience that one of the songs he wished he had added to his choices for Desert Island Discs appearance was Chuck Berry's The Promised Land. Kershaw said: "It's the perfect song."

10.40 Just been reading Martin Chilton's review of Jack Dee. Started guffawing very loudly, much to the chagrin one very hungover looking fellow sat about 15 yards away from me, who was/is presumably trying to sleep with his eyes open. Dee's riff on Hay-on-Wye is ruddy funny though:

"I'm not going to talk about those riots here in Hay-on-Wye, seeing as you got the worst of it. I'm sure you will rebuild and make it nice again. What a mess. Many of you still living in tents."

Just imagine Dee's face as he dropped that humour bomb.

10.28 Currently happening at Hay: Kate Summerscale talking to Telegraph Arts Queen Sarah Crompton; TV and radio man Jeremy Vine revealing the secrets of 25 years in broadcasting; octogenarian Czech author Helga Weiss discussing her life with Philippe Sands.

Other than that, I've got radio silence, though Digital Culture mogul - and my boss - Martin Chilton has just come to the rescue. We'll be bringing you a review of Jack Dee's stand-up show from last night very shortly. And pictures! I love Jack Dee, only my father and Victor Meldrew come close to being able to affect an expression of such unqualifiedmisery.

Before arriving here, Miss Portas had no idea of the discontent that has been caused by the council selling off a primary school site to developers who want to put a supermarket on it. She was told about it over breakfast with the owner of the B&B she was staying in and, in typical Portas style, leapt straight into action.

The locals, who number 1,500 and already have one superstore in the town, have been told that the developers will also build a new school, but are angry that they have not been consulted properly on the proposals. The pressure group Plan B has been set up on behalf of the 80 per cent of residents who oppose a new supermarket.

“This is David Cameron’s localism in action,” said Miss Portas. “Local people should decide what happens to where they live. I firmly believe that every place in Britain should have a 'town team’, made up of residents. Big business can ruin small towns. It can stop the capitalists of tomorrow.”

10.17Tom Hollander is so good that one appearance at Hay just wasn't enough. You can catch him twice today, firstly talking to Hay director Peter Florence at 11.30am in the Sky Arts Studio, and then as part of the Josephine Hart Poetry Hour at 4pm in the Barclays Pavilion.

It doesn’t often happen that a new sitcom is born perfectly formed. Such was the case with BBC Two’s Rev, an immaculate concept.

It featured the ideal sitcom protagonist: a very nice, very put-upon, shepherd of men whose decency is thwarted from all sides by the forces of mayhem and worse. Though the Rev Adam Smallbone may seep wetness like an identikit Anglican padre, he also has a penchant for fags, booze and the local headmistress. And, unlike The Vicar of Dibley, he preaches to a multicultural inner-city flock.

Rev really found its feet in its second series broadcast last year. The sense is that it can heal the sick, make the lame walk and bring straying multitudes back to the path of righteousness. That at least is the anxiety of its star and co-creator, Tom Hollander. His career was already replete with notable moments on screen – big and small – and stage (In the Loop, Any Human Heart, and Landscape with Weapon at the National), but it has moved on to a higher plane now he’s in a dog collar.

“We went to the Greenbelt Christian festival for research purposes,” he says. “Somebody came up and said, 'I am a priest and I was having a crisis of faith. I was about to give up. Your show restored my faith.’ ”

Egypt faces a battle for its revolution as the presidential elections reach their climax this week, according to a leading commentator who backed the uprisings.

Voters face a choice between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, and a former prime minister, Ahmed Shafik.

If they chose the former regime candidate, the country faces abandoning the revolution which was pivotal to the Arab Spring, according to Wadah Khanfar, the former director general of al-Jazeera television network.

Mr Khanfar denied that al-Jazeera had driven the Islamist dominance of the post-revolution elections by adopting an overtly religious agenda in the years before the uprising.

As soon as everyone has popped an Alka-Seltzer and recovered from the wrap party last night, I'll be able to bring the latest news, views, reviews et cetera from the final day at Hay.

The final day it may be, but things certainly aren't winding down - more like going out with a bang, with another fantastic line-up of guests. They include: TV historian and thoroughly clever bloke David Starkey, pint-sized actor Tom Hollander, frog-eyed funnyman and lost Lord of the Rings extra Bill Bailey, and literary Pele MARTIN AMIS. Good times, we've had a few...

Usual spiel about getting involved, lifted in its entirety from yesterday morning's blog:

As ever, feel free to tweet your thoughts on the festival, the cosmos, Cheryl Cole, internet dating, scaling Everest etc to @TelegraphBooks, or use hashtags #hay25 or #hayfestival - the best ones will appear on this very blog. If you're extremely keen, or like the cut of my typing jib and would like to ask me out to dinner, you can do so at james.lachno@telegraph.co.uk

(I'm still waiting for someone to ask me to dinner, if you're wondering).